bobt993

Martin,

The Nurburgring is full of late blind apex'es so your first goal is to learn the proper entry points and avoid an early apex.

As far as to hot entry on the tracks you are currently learning. Assuming you are building up entry and find your self too hot at of before the apex. You need to learn to have patience on the throttle and avoid inducing understeer on turn exit. This becomes an important skill in racecraft when your only opportunity to overtake someone comes on turn entry and you want to preserve exit and defend the re-pass attempt.

martinr007

Thanks for that Bob,

I'm working on the proper apex's (got a circuit guide I'm studying furiously) and plan on cramming as much practise on Forza 4 as I can I know it's no substitute for the real thing but at least I'll hopefully have an idea if it's a left or a right turn coming up.

As I said my main worry is if I get a bit to confident, barrel into a turn to quick and then it's oh bugger! With so little run off do I lift off a bit and hope for no oversteer or wind in a bit more lock and pray!

bobt993

The challenge at the Ring is much of the green scenery looks the same once you leave Hatzenbach. The steep down hill sections have a nice rhythm, but it is easy to confuse one corner to the next. I would suggest making contact with a Ring veteran and pay for some ride-alongs and coaching. It is also possible to bum a ride with some local talent in the paddock, but you are taking some risks. One year I was there I met up with a vintage racer that was miss-formed by his buddy that their race that weekend would only be on the F1 track and he would have no problem learning the track in one day. I ended up driving him around till the afternoon helping him learn a couple of sections. I don't think you can prepare using video games for the elevation changes, jumps, and various conditions, but you can at least get a feel for the size and layout. It takes a good 50 laps and I have been fortunate enough to get time there with a closed course when it is possible to get a decent amount track time. Good luck, have fun, be safe.

PS. do some searches on RL for Ring info and you will find the contacts for a bunch of guys that know the track and are there quite often.

martinr007

Thanks again for the advice Bob.

I'm heading out for a 3 day Nurburgring / Spa jolly with a group of seasoned DE drivers. It won't be the tourist days so am hopeful it will be reasonably quiet and there's free tuition on offer which I'm planning to take.

The guys I'm heading out with normally go out 2 to 3 times a year and are all really experienced so it should be fun, I just need to make sure I don't get to ambitious and try to keep up

cajuncroc

If it hasn't been posted, here is the Autosport article. http://f12011-setups.blogspot.com/

911SLOW

I agree with bobt993.

The best advice they gave me, and I think it's important for any ring rookie, is to forget about driving it fast and never measure lap times for the first 30 or so..

Focus on the driving experience and safely enjoy your weekend.

Check this post, SM makes it look easy..

https://rennlist.com/forums/8237368-post1.html

MattUF

I'd agree with the ring advice given above, soak up the experience! I tried to watch videos and log time on my gaming system beforehand and it did allow me to recognize some sections of the track but the majority is going to be guessing. One thing I did which I found helpful due to the large amount of blind corners is pick up where curbing starts and more often than not that will be the direction of the turn.

fleadh

Not sure if anyone else has tried doing this, but I angled one of my in-car cameras in an attempted to get my eyes in view.

My biggest driving problem over the last 6 months or so has been losing time from the middle of the braking zone to the apex (consistently, at all tracks against all the Pro's I've driven with). After working with my normal driving coach and talking to a few other people, I was pretty sure it was because my visual focus changes to "over-the-nose" of the car in the braking zone.. and once I feel like I've slowed down enough, then I look for the apex.. instead of looking ahead for the apex while braking. I'd always catch myself at the apex having over slowed, but just couldn't break myself of the habit no matter what I tried.

It turns out the angle of the camera wasn't good enough to get my eyes, but it worked on my coach! I trimmed out our fast laps and synced them together side-by-side to make sure I didn't have any glaring issues with my technique (never seen myself drive before.. only foot cam and out the front of the car).


It actually made driving easier when I focused on keeping my eyes up in the braking zone. I was carrying way more speed throughout the entire corner and actually going deeper than I normally do.

Sometimes you hear the basics so often (looking ahead) that you start to tune them out and forget about them. Especially in a fast car where self preservation starts to kick in! Hopefully this helps if any of you are having the same issue..

-mike

ProCoach

Superb analysis, Mike. This is the major reason why the multi-camera systems have proliferated over the last two years and your exercise is the FIRST thing I do when I put one of my systems in a clients car.

The coupling of physically moving your head (first) and eyes with measuring the path and speed that the car takes through corner entry is the perfect indicator of a) how far ahead drivers are looking (and hopefully, thinking) and b) that you are focusing in the distance or "with the end in mind."

The number one difference that I have observed and measured in vision technique between club drivers and pros is that the pros already have such a clear vision (and such good discipline of where to place the car and to execute control inputs) that they file that away subconsciously and instead look and think FAR ahead of where they are. Your video shows just that.

It's amazing. Great stuff!

Veloce Raptor

I agree with Peter here (once again).

Probably one of the most common things I find myself doing when in the right seat is getting the driver to look much farther ahead.

martinr007

I'd been looking for that Massen clip but couldn't remember the title, thanks John, he does make it look ridiculously easy!

Larry Herman

I think that part of the problem may be visual fixation. Even those who "look down the track" can still wind up staring at a certain view and not get the full picture. You really need to keep your eyes moving up and down the track. I have a technique where I instruct my students where to look...down the track, at the braking area, down the track, at the apex, down the track, in the mirrors, at the trackout, down the track, at the gauges, down the track...etc. It helps to get them to keep their eyes moving, and if they do that, they will naturally tend to look farther ahead. It also helps to improve one's sense of track awareness.

Veloce Raptor

EXACTLY!!!

Scan, scan, scan...

KaiB

The unspoken prerequsite here is the demand that the eyes are actually open...I'll have to work on that as it's much easier just to shut them.

Mike, brilliant and elegant in it's simplicity; a lesson for all of us at any level.

ProCoach

It's why you have two cameras, Kai!